The reason I started blogging on this site was not to instruct others on how to improve their lives but instead to learn how to improve my own.  My sister and my son-in-law are already helping me in that regard.  They read my original "creating happiness" blog and made some really great comments.  I wanted to add those thoughts to this revised blog and integrate them into the original philosophy.

 

1)  My sister pointed out that she believes that we will always want more of what we consider will make us happy no matter how much of it we get.  It is her hypothesis that the person who is always motivated to improving their life will almost by definition never achieve true happiness.  They will always have a feeling of wanting more because that is their driving personality style.  I think she is correct.  I also think this is the way it is supposed to be.  We should always push to improve elements of our lives to improve our happiness quotient and our quality of life and we are never supposed to achieve it.  I think of this as a gauge on a car where over to the far left is depression and to the far right is utopia.  In between are varying levels of satisfaction and then happiness.  Certainly we cannot deny that some people are happier and have a better life than others.   We also know that in THIS world utopia does not exist.  But that should not stop us from trying to get the needle as far to the right as possible.

 

2)  My son-in-law who is way wiser than his age would suggest, has said that he feels that happiness comes through relationships with friends, family  and loved ones not through other more materialistcally motivated pursuits.  I agree with him.  I do want to say a couple of things here however.  We should not be ashamed of trying to improve ALL aspects of our lives.  We should not be ashamed of trying to make more money or lose weight or spiritual pursuits.  I sometimes think we are almost conditioned to believe that some of these more "self" directed pursuits are some how shameful or less than pure.  I think the key here becomes balance.  Driving toward any one life goal at the expense of others is not going to wind up pushing the needle further to the right.

 

Lastly I want to say that I have just begun reading the book "The Power of Intention".  It almost feels like divine intervention that this book came to my attention just as I started this blog.  For me, this book seems to make the world of science interweave with the much un-explained spiritual side of my life.  It sort of all makes sense.  Read it if you get the chance!